The use of displays in a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment environment was first developed in the late 80's and early 90's, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,412,419, 5,432,544, 5,627,902, and 5,877,732.
MRI is one of the fastest changing imaging modalities in the world. In addition to the use of MRI for the diagnostic purpose, other applications such as fMRI have been a major use of this imaging modality. The fMRI field requires various stimulation tasks such as an auditory and visual delivery system along with eye tracking to record the movements of the eyes during the procedure. There is also a need to have an easy method of linking the subject to the outside world. With current technology, there is no easy method of have different devices interfaced in the magnet room. For the time being, various devices like response, button, auditory, video and other equipment are made by different vendors and there is not an easy way of using them as a unit. For example, if the subject is being scanned and the stimulation tasks include creating a virtual reality world for the subject and recording both the subject's eye movements and hand movements, or recording the facial expression, or simply communicating with the patient during the procedure, at least four to five different vendor products might be involved. Synchronizing the various products together is not an easy task. All of these tasks are not universal and often are difficult to perform.